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Bitcoin could hit $250,000 within the next five years as it approaches the equivalent of gold's market capitalization, according to Morgan Creek Capital Management's Mark Yusko.
Yusko told CNBC's "Trading Nation" on Friday investors are underestimating bitcoin's ability, and it is more than just a token of value.
"It's just about network adoption and increased usage," he said. "This is a network and networks grow in an exponential way. This is the fastest network in history to a trillion dollars of value, right on the heels of the FAANGs that took 15 to 20 years, depending on which one you look at."
Bitcoin hit the $1 trillion market valuation in just 12 years of existence, while mega-cap US tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Alphabet took much longer.
Yusko said if bitcoin reaches near gold's monetary value, each coin would be valued at about $250,000.
"Bitcoin is digital gold, and as it approaches that monetary value of gold at $4 trillion — that gets you to that $250,000 value," he said. "If we went all the way to all the gold including jewelry and bars and coins, then (bitcoin) could be as high as $8 trillion of value, and probably closer to $500,000."
Billionaire Mike Novogratz, known for his bullish views on the cryptocurrency, has previously said he expects bitcoin to top gold's market cap on inflows from big institutions.
Bitcoin's share in the total crypto market has fallen sharply over the past month to around 35% from around 55%, as other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum's ether and dogecoin post new highs. A greater focus on environmental standards has shifted investor attention away from the energy-intensive blockchain to the Ethereum network.
"What people miss is this is a technological evolution of computing power that isn't going away," Yusko said, comparing it the way the internet functions. "It is a powerful computing network that is going to become the base layer protocol for the internet of value."
The chief investment officer said if bitcoin is the TCP/IP of the internet, Ethereum is a toolkit like the "www dot."
"So, yes, there's room for a couple of protocols to survive, but there are thousands of coins and Doge is in that category that really are useless, they're just utility tokens that have no underlying value, or use case, and they'll eventually disappear," he said.
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